Image-forming MR methods which utilize the interaction between magnetic fields and nuclear spins in order to form two-dimensional or three-dimensional images are widely used nowadays, notably in the field of medical diagnostics, because for imaging of soft tissue they are superior to other imaging methods in many respects, do not require ionizing radiation and are usually not invasive.
According to the MR method in general, the object, for example the body of the patient to be examined, is arranged in a strong, uniform magnetic field whose direction at the same time defines an axis (normally the z-axis) of the co-ordinate system on which the measurement is based. The magnetic field produces different energy levels for the individual nuclear spins in dependence on the magnetic field strength which can be excited (spin resonance) by application of an electromagnetic alternating field (RF field) of defined frequency (so-called Larmor frequency, or MR frequency). From a macroscopic point of view the distribution of the individual nuclear spins produces an overall magnetization which can be deflected out of the state of equilibrium by application of an electromagnetic pulse of appropriate frequency (RF pulse), so that the magnetization performs a precessional motion about the z-axis. The precessional motion describes a surface of a cone whose angle of aperture is referred to as flip angle. The magnitude of the flip angle is dependent on the strength and the duration of the applied electromagnetic pulse. In the case of a so-called 90° pulse, the spins are deflected from the z axis to the transverse plane (flip angle 90°).
After termination of the RF pulse, the magnetization relaxes back to the original state of equilibrium, in which the magnetization in the z direction is built up again with a first time constant T1 (spin lattice or longitudinal relaxation time), and the magnetization in the direction perpendicular to the z direction relaxes with a second time constant T2 (spin-spin or transverse relaxation time). The variation of the magnetization can be detected by means of receiving RF coils which are arranged and oriented within an examination volume of the MR device in such a manner that the variation of the magnetization is measured in the direction perpendicular to the z-axis. The decay of the transverse magnetization is accompanied, after application of, for example, a 90° pulse, by a transition of the nuclear spins (induced by local magnetic field inhomogeneities) from an ordered state with the same phase to a state in which all phase angles are uniformly distributed (dephasing). The dephasing can be compensated by means of a refocusing pulse (for example a 180° pulse). This produces an echo signal (spin echo) in the receiving coils.
To realize spatial resolution in the body, constant magnetic field gradients extending along the three main axes are superposed on the uniform magnetic field, leading to a linear spatial dependency of the spin resonance frequency. The signal picked up in the receiving coils then contains components of different frequencies which can be associated with different locations in the body. The signal data obtained via the receiving coils corresponds to the spatial frequency domain and is called k-space data. The k-space data usually includes multiple lines acquired with different phase encoding. Each line is digitized by collecting a number of samples. A set of k-space data is converted to a MR image by means of an image reconstruction algorithm.
The so-called ‘Turbo Spin Echo’ (TSE) sequence is a well-known multi-echo imaging sequence. One ‘shot’ of the TSE sequence comprises an initial RF pulse for excitation of magnetic resonance followed by a plurality of rapidly applied (typically 180°) refocusing RF pulses generating a train of differently phase-encoded spin echo signals. The echo signals are acquired, wherein each echo signal represents a k-space profile, i.e. a one-dimensional sample of k-space, the position of the k-space profile in k-space being determined by the applied frequency encoding and phase encoding switched magnetic field gradients of the sequence. The so-called ‘Turbo Factor’ (TF) is the number of echoes acquired after each excitation. Typically, a plurality of shots of the multi-echo sequence is applied for completely sampling k-space in order to be able to reconstruct a MR image from the acquired k-space profiles. k-space is typically segmented such that each segment is attributed to one echo index number in the train of echoes generated by each shot of the sequence. In other words, each shot typically acquires k-space profiles from all segments of k-space, with the number of segments in k-space being equal to TF.
TSE sequences are applied today in almost all applications. Despite its wide use it is known to be very sensitive to motion due to the segmented k-space distributed acquisition. Small movements of the imaged object, for example of subcutaneous fat, can introduce ghosts overlapping with the part of interest disturbing the overall diagnostic value of a scan.
The above-mentioned k-space segmentation principles and problems do apply to both spin echo (TSE) and gradient echo sequences (TFE) and ‘Echo Planar Imaging’—EPI—sequences.
The US-patent application US2006/0273791 discloses a magnetic resonance imaging method in which the order of acquired k-space profiles in ech sub-set is generally different from the order of the other profile subsets.